Have you heard the one about how health care reform is the worst thing that ever happened to America (besides the gays, the feminists, the black dude in the White House, and birth control, obviously), and it is socialism and just like Hitler and will ruin freedom for everyone? OF COURSE YOU HAVE because it’s pretty much all Republicans have been saying for the last several years, and Jesus Harold Christ on a cruise ship are we sick of that shit.

But as we get ever closer to the opening of those sweet, sweet government health care exchanges (aka The Day That Is Going To Live In Infamy Like a Mofo), we can pretty much count on Republicans to try even more harder to convince us that we should REPEAL! and IMPEACH! and DEFUND! and REPEAL SOME MORE! and, failing all that, just be deeply ashamed of ourselves for being excited about slightly lower health insurance premiums, even if that IS a direct route to socialist armageddon.

Take Heritage Foundation czar and Sarah Palin imitator Jim DeMint, who quit his job senatoring South Carolina to spend more time spreading the good word about teabagging. Here he is at a townhall in Delaware, blah blahing about the evils of health care for the gazillionth time:

“I cannot think of anything that’s more un-American than national government-run health care,” DeMint said. “Those who believe in those principles of socialism and collectivism we’ve seen over the centuries, they see as their holy grail taking control of the health care system.” […]

DeMint warned his town hall audience that the system threatens Americans’ freedoms. “[Health care is] such a personal service, it’s such a big part of the economy,” he said. “If [Democrats] can control that, they can control most areas of our lives.”

Oooh, scaaaaaaaaaary. Better go hide under your bed before government-run health care programs come to take away your freedoms by making you enroll in the exchanges or maybe that government-run health care program, Medicare, that has been around for decades and somehow failed to destroy America, haters. We don’t even want to think about what kind of anti-American collectivist scum you are if you also receive Social Security.

The Kaiser Family Foundation published an interesting report this week on public attitudes on health care, noting among other things that 57% of Americans do not want to defund the Affordable Care Act. […]

The Heritage Foundation was apparently so despondent with the findings that it lost its reading-comprehension skills — the right-wing group unveiled a poster on Wednesday, asking folks to join the 57% of Americans who do want to defund “Obamacare.” When Heritage was told it simply read the poll wrong, and got the results backwards, the organization made the same mistake again.

Join the majority of Americans who support leaving Obamacare in place by opposing leaving Obamacare in place! That makes sense — if you are a Republican or A Idiot (but we repeat ourselves, ba-dump-tching!, we’ll be here all week, try the veal, and don’t forget to tip your waitresses).

And that Kaiser poll, like ALL the polls on the subject, also shows that while Republicans may have succeeded in making Americans think health reform is scary and bad and scary, turns out those same Americans — or should we call them un-Americans — love the bejesus out of the provisions of health care reform. Who knew? (Besides everyone except the Heritage Foundation.)

So screech on, Republicans, and keep misunderstanding what the meaning of “the majority of Americans” is, but Obamacare, aka Democratic control of our lives, hooray!, is a-comin’. You know, if the socialist collectivist un-Americanist apocalypse doesn’t kill us all first.